Thursday, July 19, 2012

"Help us, government man!"

It seems that the powers-that-be are going to demolish a building to make way for some new development. Now this should be seen as a good thing, as it'll bring jobs, both in construction and in whatever services that the tenants of the building offer. But what do we see in the news? Residents of the nearby Iberville public housing project running around worrying about the dust from the demolition and voicing outrage that no one from the public housing authority has come around to manage this "crisis" for them.

Iberville residents said on Tuesday that the little they knew about the implosion came from news reports, not from the Housing Authority of New Orleans. "I keep saying, 'When are they going to come tell us something?'" said Lanetter Dorsey, 54, who is in poor health and doesn't feel comfortable staying inside her Iberville apartment during the implosion. "I guess they've decided we need to fend for ourselves," she said.

OMG! Those poor people! They might actually have to learn things from the news and make their own decisions, just like everyone else does! How mean! How cruel! Why isn't the government man coming in to tell them what to do and make everything ok? How long after the dust settles can they start filing claims for some sort of cash reimbursement to make up for all of the stress? And the worst that could ever happen to them, in their eyes, is that they have to "fend for themselves". The horror!

This is pathetic. These people are grown. Their votes count as much as mine and yours. (and every one who bothers to cast a ballot will likely do so for Obama...) But here they are, upset and befuddled, with no idea what to do or how to respond to even this simple interruption of their day.

But Iberville residents sitting inside apartments within dark-brick buildings could soon become overheated if the dust takes hours to settle.

So go the F--k outside then! Leave for a few hours! Geez...how hard is that to figure out?

This is a prime example of the culture of dependency that big government has created, and it's what the Obama administration is trying to spread over our country, with one person and seven now receiving food stamps and with the USDA now working with the freaking Mexican government to try to get as many illegal aliens from that country to take our welfare as they can. Because the Obamaites know that people who are dependent on the government will continue to vote for the Democrats that made them dependent and accept further impositions of control over their lives from those Democrats. There's a reason why the Democrat party sends buses by the score into public housing projects around the country on election day...they know that they have a loyal base there and they're working hard to expand it because they know that it may well give them enough votes to allow them to keep control of the country despite objections from those of us who don't want their taxpayer-funded largess.

Now on another tangent, the taxpayers need to be asking why the Iberville housing project is even still around. It was condemned after being devastated by Hurricane Katrina and everyone living there was relocated by the taxpayers and given new apartments, mainly in Texas and other locations where space and local jobs were available. Yet one of the first things that then-Mayor Ray Nagin did was to divert federal money intended to help rebuild the city's infrastructure into programs designed to bring the displaced public housing residents back in time for the next election. Remember Nagin's statement that New Orleans has to remain a "Chocolate city"? He was afraid that a smaller voting pool made up largely of business owners, investors and workers might result in fewer Democrats keeping their jobs, especially after the way that his administration bungled things so badly during and after Katrina's strike. so now we have all-new welfare apartments built up to house a core Democrat constituency on some of the city's most valuable real estate right outside of the French Quarter, and it's housing many of the people who are responsible for much of the crime in the French Quarter. But the criminals, their families and other welfare recipients in the projects can be counted on to vote Dem, and the business owners and tourists in the Quarter who suffer from their presence...well most of them come from outside the city, so the don't rate serious consideration by the one-party (Dem) administration of that city.

As it stands now, that valuable land remains in service as a high-crime hot-spot that serves only to retard and inhibit meaningful economic development of that whole area. I mean, it it were my call, people relying on the taxpayers for a roof over their heads would be housed on old military bases or moved out into the country into the cheapest housing possible and the cities would be encouraged to put prime real estate like that under the Iberville projects to the best economic use on behalf of the taxpayers. But then again, that's probably why I don't get to run things.

I am more and more of the opinion that the only ones who should be able to vote are ones who have skin in the game - either those with military service, or property owners, or business owners. Perhaps with a timeline attached - 5 years in any of those categories. That way you have to live in and experience the ups and downs, rather than creating a do-nothing LLC and then getting your voter card.

It's very Heinleinian, and I know it will never happen short of civil war.

I don't mind supporting a welfare program. There are folks out there who are genuinely able to work, and honestly willing to work, but completely unable to work for whatever reason (health, or bad economy, etc). If a person is trying, I don't mind helping. And that's it. Nobody else. Make drug and alcohol tests mandatory (fail, without a medical waiver signed by God Himself, and you're blacklisted for good). Have agents that follow up on whether the individual is actually going to interviews or just scribbling something down. Dunno if there's a way to make it so that at least a rudimentary grasp of the English language is spoken, but that would be nice, too.